wacli.me

Hosted MCP gateway in front of the wacli WhatsApp CLI.

The idea: someone links their WhatsApp account once (QR, like WhatsApp Web) and gets a URL plus a bearer token. Any MCP client can then read, search — and optionally send — without running anything locally.

Status: public alpha. Single host, single process. Live at https://wacli.me.

MIT licensed. Self-hosting is a first-class path — see "Running" below.

Layout

Code

server/      Node MCP server (Streamable HTTP) + static file serving
site/        website sources (pages + layout + assets)
web/         generated site, built from site/ by scripts/build.mjs — never edit
config/      tenants.json (gitignored) — token -> store mapping
bin/wacli    pinned wacli binary, isolated from any system install
stores/      one wacli store directory per tenant (gitignored)
scripts/     start/stop/tunnel helpers

Endpoints

Path	Purpose
`/`	landing page
`/mcp`	MCP over Streamable HTTP, `Authorization: Bearer …`
`/healthz`	liveness + tenant count
`/connect`	self-service linking: live QR, issues a token
`/.well-known/oauth-*`	OAuth 2.1 discovery — clients fetch their own credentials

Tenants

config/tenants.json:

config.json

{
  "tenants": [
    { "id": "demo", "token": "<32 random bytes, hex>", "store": "/Users/<user>/wacli-me/stores/demo", "allowSend": false }
  ]
}

The file is re-read every 5 seconds — adding a tenant needs no restart. A token maps to exactly one store directory; tools are constructed per request against that store, so two tenants cannot see each other's data. allowSend is what registers the send_message tool at all; leave it false unless the account owner explicitly asked for write access.

Generate a token with openssl rand -hex 32.

Running

Terminal

npm install --prefix server
node scripts/build.mjs                        # site/ -> web/
PORT=8787 HOST=127.0.0.1 node server/server.mjs

Environment:

Variable	Default	Meaning
`PORT`	`8787`	listen port
`HOST`	`127.0.0.1`	bind address — keep loopback, expose via tunnel
`WACLI_BIN`	`./bin/wacli`	wacli binary
`WACLI_ME_TENANTS`	`./config/tenants.json`	tenant file

Linking an account

bash

bin/wacli --store stores/<tenant> auth        # prints a QR, scan it on the phone
bin/wacli --store stores/<tenant> sync        # backfill history (long-running; run as a daemon)

Without a sync daemon the store only holds what was fetched during the last run.

Security notes

Bind to loopback and publish through a tunnel; never expose the port directly.
Every MCP request needs a valid bearer token; tokens are compared in constant time.
Reads run wacli with --read-only, so a compromised tool call cannot mutate the store.
The QR link is a linked device. Whoever holds the store can read that account's messages — treat store directories and tenant tokens as credentials.

License

MIT, see LICENSE. site/assets/qrcode.min.js is Kazuhiko Arase's qrcode-generator, vendored unchanged (MIT). wacli itself is a separate MIT project — this repository only drives it.

Linking an account uses an unofficial WhatsApp client. That is against WhatsApp's terms of service, and Meta may block a number for it. Run it on accounts you own, and tell your users the same.